It's the slowest release week of the year, giving us all plenty of time to …

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With the holidays almost upon us, it appears as though the games industry is already on vacation. This week sees pretty much no new game releases—aside from a port of a PopCap game to the DS and a Wii title exploring four famous fairy tales. But as Ben said last week, this is a good thing, as many of us will finally have time to catch up on our ever-growing backlog. 2008 has seen the release of a lot of great games; so many in fact that even those of us whose job it is to keep up to date have fallen behind. So take this week off and enjoy the fact that we're no longer buried under the weight of so many AAA titles. Instead, we now have the time to actually play them.

Here are a few titles you may have missed over the past few months.

Valkyria Chronicles - A victim of poor release timing, Sega's PlayStation 3 exclusive strategy RPG was lost in the shuffle of holiday releases. It offers a unique combination of real-time and turn-based combat, a deep experience system, and a stunning, hand drawn visual style.

Persona 4 - Possibly the last great game to hit the PlayStation 2, P4 is also arguably the best JRPG of the year. A noticeable improvement over its predecessor, the game offers everything role-playing fans could want: great story, interesting characters, and a strange bear-like creature.

Prince of Persia - Another unfortunate victim of the holiday rush, the latest incarnation of the PoP series has a lot to offer. A gorgeous art direction is backed up by some great platforming action, including a new quick-save feature that eliminates much of the frustration inherent to the genre. It may be too easy for some, but if you want a gentle ride with plenty of eye candy, this is hard to beat.

Nintendo DS

Mystery P.I.: Portrait of a Thief

Wii

Story Hour: Fairy Tales

While efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of these lists, release dates are always subject to change.